Author: Brenda Clements Jones

Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.

Blackhaw Viburnum

A large bush that I’ve been delighted to find is Blackhaw Viburnum (Viburnum prunifolium). It’s growing by my backdoor, and there’s lots of it growing in the woods all around my cabin.

The leaves of Blackhaw emerge from the buds involute, or curled as a spiral. The mature, glossy, opposite leaves are three to four inches long and one inch wide with fine serrations and pointed at the end. The petioles, or stems, of the leaves are a reddish color. In the autumn the leaves turn a purply-red.

Soon my bush will have buds. Buds that will become clusters of fragrant flowers four to five inches across. Flowers that will attract bees and flies to do their pollination magic.

Blackhaw Viburnum is the host plant of Spring and Summer Azure butterflies. The later caterpillar instars of the Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly occasionally feed on its leaves. Oh I wish I’d see a Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly! I’ve seen their caterpillars while pulling invasives in Shenandoah National Park. Never the adult though.

Its fruits, called drupes, are about one half inch long. They’re eaten by songbirds, gamebirds, squirrels and chipmunks.

As a tree Blackhaw Viburnum can grow to be thirty feet tall. Its bark blocky in a Persimmon tree sort of way. Large bush, small tree, all in all a mighty cool plant.

Green and Gold

A super ground cover that is holding up my back hill, keeping it from washing away. And such a splendid glowing yellow. Bright colors tend to win my heart. Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum) is a perennial herb with opposite, oval, hairy leaves, blooming from early spring into late autumn though its peak bloom is in May. I can count on finding blooms most any time with the exception of winter.

Native to woodland areas from Pennsylvania to the Florida Panhandle and Louisiana.

Bees and butterflies, such as this Clouded/Orange Sulphur, get the pollinating done. Songbirds are attracted to the seeds that develop.

Wild Geraniums with their blushing pink decided to plunk themselves down in front of the Green and Gold plants on the back hill. I’m so glad it volunteered. A charming color combination.

Blueberry Pie

Special occasions call for special things to happen in the kitchen. That’s why there’s blueberry pie just out of the oven. For dessert after dinner tonight.

I make my crust from scratch. I think I could make the crust in my sleep. It’s very simple, very easy. For me anyway. Here’s the recipe.

Pie Crust             for a 9” two crust pie or two 9” crusts

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup shortening
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 4 or 5 tablespoon COLD water

Blend together flour, salt and shortening with a pastry blender or two knives.

Add 4 tablespoons COLD water and continue blending with knives or pastry blender. Add additional tablespoon water only if needed.

Divide dough into two balls and let sit for an hour. Then line your pie pan. Freeze the other ball of dough for another pie in the future.

Like the crust, I have the recipe for Blueberry Pie memorized. As a matter of fact you may have seen my blog post about Apple Pie. It’s nearly the same. Only difference is the fruit. And I occasionally put in a bit of lemon juice on top of the apples before the crumb topping goes on. Here’s the blueberry pie recipe.

Blueberry Pie

Oven temp. 425° for first 20 minutes. Lower temp. to 375° and continue baking for an additional 40 to 45 minutes.

  • 1 – 9″ crust, unbaked
  • Blueberries, about 5 cups, or enough to fill your 9″ crust
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) softened butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Fill pie crust with blueberries.

Cream softened together butter, salt, cinnamon and sugar. Add flour and continue blending until crumbs are a uniform size and are well blended.

Top blueberries with your crumb topping.

Bake at 425° for 20 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 375° and continue baking for 40 to 45 minutes until blueberries are bubbling. Cool and serve. Vanilla ice cream makes a perfect topping for the pie.

All my blueberry bushes are in bloom as I’m typing this, bringing many bees that will pollinate the flowers.

Soon the bushes will be loaded with green orbs that look like they’ve got little crowns.

Perhaps by the end of May I’ll be able to harvest a few of the berries. By the middle of June there will be plenty of berries to make me, and birds like this female Scarlet Tanager, very happy.

Indigo Bunting

Knock your socks off COLOR. That’s what I think of when an image of a male Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) comes to mind. With the female, if you look carefully you might be able to catch a hint of the vivid azure that the male wears so magnificently. But I wouldn’t know a male Indigo Bunting during the winter. He wears feathers of brown.

Soon to arrive to spend the summer. You’ll get a hint as to how soon in looking at this photograph. She’s using a spear of asparagus as a landing spot. Asparagus is coming up right now. In looking through my photos and seeing when the Indigo Buntings have arrived in the past, I think they’ll be arriving just any day now. And through their journey they often migrate at night using the stars to navigate. Birds after my own heart.

Amazing to think, the feathers of the Indigo Bunting contain no blue pigment. The blue we see is a result of the way the feathers are bouncing and reflecting light.

What an amazing trick of Nature.

Gray Dogwood

Just like the Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) that we see most often, Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa) has opposite leaves and those leaves look quite similar to Flowering Dogwood.

The flowers of Gray Dogwood arrive on dome shaped panicles, or branched clusters, in late May and June here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

The individual flowers in the panicles are one quarter inch across. Those flowers contain a short calyx with four small teeth, four creamy white petals, four stamens with soft yellow anthers, and a central pistil.

The branches of each panicle are creamy white like the petals, when the flowers are produced. In a short time they become bright red as the drupes, or fruit, matures. Anyone else see these as little teeny trees?

Nearly one hundred species of birds are attracted to these drupes from late summer into early autumn.

And as autumn descends upon these small trees the leaves turn a soft yellow with highlights of purply-red.

My favorite part of the year as Gray Dogwoods go through each of the seasons is of course, winter. Those teeny trees, which are actually the panicles that were in turn, for flowers and then, for drupes become the perfect receptacles for ice and iced spider webs as well.

2021 Hummingbird Arrival

Today it happened! A favorite day of the year when the first hummingbird arrives. As is the custom of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) the male leaves first, from his winter home, to arrive here at my cabin in the wood, mid-April. Females will arrive a week to ten days later. I’m looking forward to their arrivals when mating can begin and nest building will get underway. It is the female that selects the site, gathers all her building materials and creates her nest. And she may have two broods during the season, sometimes reusing her first nest. I’ll be searching in all the trees in the area. Looking for the tiny nests. Try as I might I’ve not spotted one yet.

Generally two eggs are laid in the nest. Incubation and feeding of the nestlings is left entirely to the female. It takes between fifteen and eighteen days for the eggs to hatch. Mom feeds her nestlings small insects and nectar. Nestlings fledge in eighteen to twenty-eight days. Then – will the feeders ever be busy!

I’m looking forward to seeing the hijinks of all the hummingbirds. The best action takes place when there are oodles of them. I’m never able to get a count of the hummingbirds that are here but have counted easily fifteen at any one time at the feeders. Surely there are others off in the gardens enjoying the plants that I have specifically put in for them. So it’s hard to know exactly what the population is during their summer with me. I’ll just leave that number at oodles.

The hummingbirds are so entertaining, racing round and round the cabin, chasing each other. It makes me feel as though I’m riding on a carousel. In addition I can’t wait to see the antics of my family as they enjoy the hummingbirds!

A summer with Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. Pure glee.

Christmas Fern

A tough fern often spotted on the trails up here in the mountains. Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), one of the most common ferns in eastern North America which is its native range.

These are called crosiers, or more commonly, fiddleheads. In them I see movement, dance, music. Certainly grace and beauty. I love it in the spring when they are unfurling. It’s happening right now as spring reaches into warmth.

A perennial and evergreen fern that says elegance and charm. Fronds swaying together to the melody in their hearts. But don’t all ferns express that same feeling?

Perennial and evergreen. Takes on the snow and ice of winter like a champ. Like the best of us.

And come spring again is all set for music and dance. Swaying to their own melody. The refrain in their hearts.

Virginia Springbeauty

I’ve got itty-bitty buds on my Virginia Springbeauty (Claytonia virginica). Buds that look very much like really teeny tiny jalapeño peppers. What looks to me like those jalapeño peppers are sepals. Sepals are leaf-like structures surrounding and protecting the maturing bud. The number of sepals varies in difference species of flower. In Virginia Springbeauty there are two sepals for each flower. Look at the bud that has just opened in the lower left corner of the above image. The bud looks as though it is coming out of the mouth of (hmmm what? maybe . . . ) a crocodile. That “crocodile” is the two sepals that are opening for the bud/flower to come out.

Virginia Springbeauty is found in and is native to eastern North America.

The plant emerges from a tuber (also called a corm) as a stem with leaves at ground level. Halfway up the stem there are two blade-like leaves and further up the stem are the flowers. The flowers of Virginia Springbeauty are about one half inch across.

The flowers are pollinated by bees, flies and sometimes butterflies and skippers. The resulting fertilized flower will produce a capsule that contains seeds with appendages called elaiosomes which ants like to feed to their larvae in their underground nests, producing the perfect “ant farmer” situation.

I think it’ll be perhaps a week until my flowers open. Open during the day, closed at night or during cloudy days. I’m looking forward to finding them open, looking like peppermint candy.

Sassafras Trees Are Dioecious

Seems winter has given up. Spring has won the battle of the seasons and is stepping through the woods. Right now, mid-April, Sassafras Trees (Sassafras albidum) are in bloom throughout the woods of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia. Creating a soft watercolor wash of pale yellow.

Sassafras is a dioecious tree, meaning any Sassafras tree that you may come upon in the woods or in your yard is either a female tree or a male tree. Each individual tree’s flowers in turn are either female flowers or male flowers. The blossoms in the image immediately above are female flowers. Each female flower is very small at about one third inch across. Each has six sepals, an elongated central pistil and six small sterile stamens.

The male flower to my eyes looks like a busier flower. These are male flowers in the photo above. Each little flower, one third inch across, consists of six sepals and nine stamens with yellow anthers.

Going from tree to tree, the flowers are pollinated by various bees, flies, sawflies, beetles and wasps. Fertilized female flowers produce oval drupes. A drupe is also known as a fleshy fruit with thin skin and a central stone containing the seed. Drupe is easier to say.

When the drupes are ripe, reaching a deep blue-black color, seated on a pedicel that appears to be a rich red goblet, songbirds, Wild Turkeys, and Bobwhites enjoy the buffet and spread seeds through the woods. Bringing us more gorgeous Sassafras Trees.

American Toad

What a nice surprise to have a little visitor in the vegetable garden. A visitor that I don’t often get to see. An American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus). It seemed to prefer the “sit very very still and you won’t be seen” stance.

But the little creature was seen throughout the day. I was pleased each time I saw it again, mostly in the same place. Sitting very very still.

A funny tidbit of info, this toad, and all toads are actually a subset of FROGS. So all toads are also frogs, but frogs are NOT toads.

By the afternoon I was lucky to spot the little toad again. I guess the sun was getting too warm since it was digging itself down into the freshly turned garden soil. A cool spot for a cool critter.

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